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Courses Documentation and Support for Faculty

Overview

Courses (powered by Sakai) is an open-source learning management system that offers faculty a feature-rich, online environment to support teaching and learning. The system includes basic features such as a syllabus, announcements, and content sharing (Resources). It also offers advanced features such as sequenced lesson pages (Lessons), online testing (Tests & Quizzes), assignments, discussion forums, and more.

  1. Faculty Top 10 Checklist for a New Term
  2. Faculty End-of-Term Considerations
  3. Course Creation Schedule
  4. LMS Retention Period
  5. Recorded Training Sessions
  6. Live Training Sessions
  7. Pepperdine Libraries: Library Resources for Faculty

Don't see a site?

After class site creation has happened and you don't see a site, please check your WaveNet Faculty Center to verify your teaching assignment. If you don't see your class in WaveNet, then you will not see it in Courses. If that happens, please contact your school program or division office for guidance. See other faculty site access tips.

 

Faculty Guides

Getting Started

Getting Started

View the full Getting Started guide.

gears

Course Management

 

Content Sharing

Content Sharing

Communication

Communications

  • Announcements to keep participants informed of important notices.
  • Blogs to promote student reflection and journaling.
  • Chat Room to facilitate synchronous text messaging.
  • Email Archive to create an email distribution list for your site.
  • Discussions (Previously called "Forums") to encourage asynchronous discussion.
  • Messages to send emails to participants.
  • Zoom to meet online with shared whiteboard, audio, video, and more.

 

Collaboration

Collaboration

  • Zoom to meet online with shared whiteboard, audio, video, and more.
  • Drop Box to securely share documents student-to-professor.
  • Forums to encourage asynchronous discussion.
  • Google Workspace for live document editing, document sharing, and much more.
  • Project Site to create a shared space for a research or group team.
  • Wiki for collaborative knowledge-building and collaboration.
Assessment

Assessments

  • Assignments to collect and grade paper submissions online.
  • Attendance to track and grade student attendance.
  • Certification (Beta) to issue certificates of completion on milestones.
  • Gradebook to securely share academic progress with students.
  • Polls to anonymously get the pulse on class attitudes and beliefs.
  • Rubrics to score students along a standardized grading system.
  • Statistics to review participant activity with your class tools and materials.
  • Tests & Quizzes to administer online assessments.
  • Turnitin Assignments to help students maintain academic integrity.

 

Advanced Icon Image

Advanced Topics

Additional support

Within Courses (powered by Sakai) you will find access to "Help" at the bottom of the left menu or clicking the "Help" button at the top right of any tool.  Search the built-in help to find basic how-to steps for any of the tools within Courses.

Also within Courses, you can now access the "Pepperdine Help" tab at the bottom of Courses.  This resource offers walk-throughs for common tasks within the learning management system.Pepperdine Help tab in Courses/Sakai

Faculty, staff, and students can also contact IT Tech Central for immediate support at 310.506.4357 (HELP) or 866.767.8623 toll-free in USA.